Discover Université Grenoble Alpes

Now | Design and Planning for Transitions is a national training program launched in 2026 as part of France 2030—Skills and Professions of the Future. Led by ENSCI—Les Ateliers, it harnesses design as a driver of innovation to support ecological, industrial, and societal transitions and contribute to innovative and sustainable reindustrialization.

The program is supported by a unique national consortium bringing together more than 200 partners: higher education institutions, research organizations, businesses, local governments, public entities, professional organizations, and training funding agencies. Together, they share a common goal: to transform educational programs and develop the skills needed to meet the challenges of these transitions.

The “Université Grenoble Alpes ” (UGA) is a key partner in this initiative. The university’s initiative is implemented by the UGA Design Factory, which designs and tests new pedagogical approaches to train students, faculty, and professionals to address the complex issues associated with these transitions.

Background and Issues

Design is now recognized as a key driver of innovation and transformation for organizations, regions, and industrial sectors. In the face of environmental, economic, and social crises, the challenge is to develop a design approach for transitions—one capable of addressing complex issues by drawing on multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches.

France 2030 Goal

• Position France as a leader in the production of creative and cultural content and immersive technologies, using design as a driver of innovation and competitiveness to successfully navigate these transitions.

Main Areas of Focus

The national program is structured around 24 training projects and cross-cutting initiatives carried out over a 40-month period.

• Thematic Clusters
  Networking among academic, business, and public sector stakeholders around six major transition challenges (health, artificial intelligence, agroecology, public sector transformation, etc.).
• Framework and Observatory
  Development of a national framework for occupations and skills, supplemented by an observatory tasked with anticipating changes in occupations, skills, and training needs.
• Digital Commons
  Creation of a national digital space designed to share resources produced by the program, promote their dissemination, and support their wider adoption.

For the UGA, the project is organized around three main areas:

• Establishment of a modular platform for master’s students: elective semesters, workshops, and gap years, enabling them to acquire skills in transition design and prepare for careers undergoing profound change.
• Development of a lifelong learning program structured around transferable skill sets focused on design methods applied to complex problems, with the goal of earning a master’s degree in design through the accumulation of credits.
• Training for faculty members to strengthen their capacity to co-supervise design projects, in close collaboration with professional designers.

Actions Already Implemented:

• Elective semester in "Design for Social and Environmental Innovation" for engineering students at Grenoble INP - UGA, offered in conjunction with the Master's in Design program at ENSAG - UGA.
• Implementation of training-of-trainers programs on an introduction to systems thinking and causal loop diagrams.

The Project at a Glance

Truck Driver / Pilot	ENSCI - The Workshops
Partners / Consortium Members	View the list on the project's website: maintenant-dct.fr
Funding Sources	France 2030
Amount of Funding	9 M€
Project Duration	40 months
Launch Date	June 2026